Sperm Banks: Prelude to male enslavement?

So manosphere dudes have a theory of sorts about young women that they frequently boil down to the handy catchphrase “alpha fucks, beta bucks.” The idea is that women — oh, you evil women! — have an insatiable desire to mate with and capture the sperm of hot but unreliable alpha males, and an equally innate tendency to try to con some hard-working beta schlub into paying the bills, with his beta bucks, for the resulting alpha spawn.

There are a few problems with this theory. First of all, this DOESN’T HAPPEN. Ands second,it makes no fucking sense. Why would the invisible hand of evolution want to reward the genes of Alpha men with no interest in caring for their kids and punish the betas who (at least in the manosphere version of the world) actually keep those kids alive?

But I digress. Because one clever Manospherian commenter — recently featured in a post on Rollo Tomassi’s Rational Male blog — has discovered yet more proof of the evil alpha fucks-beta bucks theory in action: Sperm banks.

Let’s let him explain, because I sure can’t:

Let’s look at this abstractly. Man and woman marry, find that she isn’t getting pregnant, determine from medical testing that his swimmers aren’t winning the race. So they pay for another man to impregnate her, although via a medical go-between. The original sperm banks screened donors and pretty much limited them to med students and other college men.

This is “Alpha Sperm, Beta Provisioning”, and nothing less. Putting a tech or a doctor in the middle wearing gloves and a lab coat, and injecting semen with a syringe rather than the usual method doesn’t change that.

Uh, aren’t sperm banks a way for couples who want babies and can’t have babies themselves to have babies? The guy in this scenario has no way to pass on his genes. That’s not an option. He wants a baby, too.

Sperm banks are therefore a clinical version of AF-BB, and as such clearly serve the Female Imperative in the same manner as a married woman having an affair while she’s ovulating … .

Uh, BUT THE MAN WANTS THE BABY TOO. Men can love children who are not biologically theirs. Families adopt children. They love them too.

[T]he whole idea of a sperm bank is a clear, medicalized, fully legal example of the Female Imperative of AF-BB … today we all accept it because teh wimmenz deserve their own bay-bee if they want one (or more), no matter the cost to anyone else.

What cost? WHAT COST? THE MAN WANTS THE BABY TOO.

“Rollo Tomassi” adds some conspiracy theorizing to the mix:

On virtually any post I’ve made about feminism … one or more commenters invariably post the youtube video about how feminism was conceived to destabilize western society (by the Rockefellers?). …. the fact that sperm banks were an unheard of development prior to the sexual revolution does give me pause to think that they were a need anticipated to better facilitate and perpetuate a future feminine-primary society.

Indeed, he points out, some of the women who go to sperm banks DON’T EVEN HAVE HUSBANDS.

Almost as if in anticipation for the unfettering of women’s hypergamy, the facility of insuring a woman’s best optimized hypergamy was institutionalized and normalized. This may sound like conjecture (since the socially proposed purpose was to facilitate pregnancy for an infertile man), but the utility of sperm banks quickly shifted to facilitating the pregnancy of women who wouldn’t be married or had no intention of marrying to start a family.

This was the first institution, legalized and normalized that laid bare feminism latent purpose – strong independent women® could remove the man from the equation of effecting an optimal hypergamy, while at the same time effecting future legislation and social engineering to enlist men (either publicly or privately) in the provisioning of this new breed of motherhood. And with every guy dutifully jerking off into a petrie dish, they effectually contribute one more element to institutionalized Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks.

And so a dude getting paid to masturbate into a cup — they don’t use petri dishes, dude — becomes yet another brick to the wall of the manosphere’s imagined oppression of men.

OK…reading that father’s story was sad, but “atheistic religion”? What…like Buddhism, Jainism or some Quakers? Nope, he just claims that a lack of belief in gods is a religion because…reasons. After reading his complete rant about how he views and blames atheism, I find it hard to believe that their relationship wasn’t strained before the young man got into the libertarian cult stuff. That just compounds the sadness.

@leatapp, I triggered on that too. But the father is clearly hurting deeply, and people in pain do tend to lash out more than they would normally, and can grasp at straws in an attempt to find meaning. So I decided it wasn’t possible to draw any further meaning from the letter without possibly decontextualising the content and thereby drawing an incorrect conclusion. Religious people can be completely wrong about atheism and still be loving parents. But I agree that the interpretation is one that leaps straight to mind.

Buttercup:
“Yeaaaaaaah….no. Sperm banks are tightly self-regulated and have way too many checks and balances. They carefully validate donor identity along every step of the way. There are multiple in-person interviews, and any inconsistencies send up a red flag. You don’t just anonymously drop off a styrofoam cup and a form in the ATM deposit drawer.

More MRA #shitthatneverhappened. Do these guys ever post anything that isn’t a loser revenge fantasy?”

– I thought the same things. His reasoning is that “caucasian” includes his ethnicity (South Asian/Indian). But he was counting on none of the men in the Manosphere not ever having been to a sperm bank or seen the forms and their questions and thus uninformed enough to not question him. Neither have I but its immediately obvious that when it comes to reproduction, there’s going to be a lot more options to check off besides white, black, hispanic, other. Or caucasian, non-caucasian. Or to take us way back “caucasoid”, “mongoloid”, and “negroid”.

According to wikipedia, almost 60% of the population has had some college education, although 45% of college students are male. If I’m mathing right that means 1/3 of adult men in the US have attended college at some point.

Not quite. If we assume 50% of the US population is male, then this means that 54% of men have attended college.

If we imagine that the US population is 100, then 60 of them have gone to college. 45% of 60 is 27. So 27 men went to college, out of 50 total men in the US. 27/50=0.54.

Anyway, mathing aside, these particular MRA theories are so divorced from reality. I mean, I can almost sympathize with someone who just hates women and thinks they are all assholes because he got rejected a bunch. Being undesired sucks and it can be very difficult to realize that the problem is you and that you need to make positive changes in your life if you want to share it with another human being.

But to literally believe that the goal of every woman everywhere is to get pregnant by an “alpha” and then marry and divorce a “beta” in order to get child support and alimony? What universe are these people from?

Kiwi Girl,
I didn’t say they were bad parents …..I said , “I find it hard to believe that their relationship wasn’t strained before …”
Context?
You think his opinion of people who don’t share his faith came about after his son died even though that’s a fairly common trope tossed out at atheists from their religious families / coworkers /etc while they’re still very much alive? Fine. I don’t. Let’s leave it at that.

“Also, it sounds like before he fell into the cults people, the son was religious and thus may’ve shared his views.”

Yes. I’m not Christian and my views on theism vs atheism are neutral but if as the father writes he was raised in a loving, non-fundamentalist Christian home and he gets involved in over a short period of time with a cult that preaches most parents are evil and abusive, any parent that takes you to church is evil and abusive, the career field you currently find yourself in (the military) is evil and abusive, your entire life up til you met us has been evil and abusive, and then this person, instead of gradually over time reflecting upon his life and making some adjustments here and there, swallows all of that Kool Aid in a matter of days – can you imagine the mind explosion and effect on his entire physiological system?

The thing is, Molyneux has several Youtube videos where he “deconstructs” and “exposes” various respected and renowned personalities, like Gandhi and MLK, and practically shouts that these people were cult leaders who brainwashed masses and that the public are a bunch of fools for believing their hype and that we need to break free from mind enslavement to these prominent figures and not put anyone on a pedestal.

“This was the first institution, legalized and normalized that laid bare feminism latent purpose – strong independent women® could remove the man from the equation of effecting an optimal hypergamy, while at the same time effecting future legislation and social engineering to enlist men (either publicly or privately) in the provisioning of this new breed of motherhood. And with every guy dutifully jerking off into a petrie dish, they effectually contribute one more element to institutionalized Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks.”

– The Manosphere is replete with articles and comments about how 3D VR Holographic porn, sexbots AND “artificial wombs” will soon render the female sex completely obsolete.

In fact, that “futurist” TFH who wrote “The Misandry Bubble” has been “predicting” this all for years now.

So why then are they against sperm banks? Rather they should promote their use because the same science that made them possible will be the same field of science (reproductive technology) that will eventually make artificial wombs possible and available to them.

Why would the invisible hand of evolution want to reward the genes of Alpha men with no interest in caring for their kids and punish the betas who (at least in the manosphere version of the world) actually keep those kids alive?

So, this is a pretty backward view of the selection going on in this sort of situation. It’s not about rewards and punishment, it’s about who’s genes make it into the next generation. Evolution doesn’t care why the offspring survive; the individuals who provided the gametes are the winners, not the caregivers.

The best illustration of this situation is brood parasitism, where animals like cowbirds and cuckoos will get other birds to raise their chicks at the expense of the hosts’ own offspring. The genes getting passed on are the cuckoos’ and the cowbirds’, not the poor sapsucker tricked into raising the murderous little imposter.

However, brood ‘parasitism’ can pretty much only work when you get another species to raise your offspring. Let’s say, just for the purposes of reasoning this through, that the “alpha” and “beta” strategies are inherited. Then the “alpha” strategy of having a lot of offspring raised by others is most successful, given a population of “betas” who will raise those offspring, probably a lot more successful. Then “beta” behavior is being strongly selected against; there will be very few “beta” males in the next generation. And in a species like humans, your offspring have a much better chance of being successful if they’re being cared for. If “beta”s disappear, the “alpha” strategy is terrible; you may have a lot of offspring, but they aren’t likely to survive. I don’t know how exactly the math works out, but in this case you’d probably get to an equilibrium of relatively rare “alphas” being brood parasites and a lot of “betas” raising their own offspring.

Of course, “alpha” and “beta” traits are almost certainly not simply genetically inherited, so evolution really doesn’t have much to say on the matter.

- I thought the same things. His reasoning is that “caucasian” includes his ethnicity (South Asian/Indian). But he was counting on none of the men in the Manosphere not ever having been to a sperm bank or seen the forms and their questions and thus uninformed enough to not question him. Neither have I but its immediately obvious that when it comes to reproduction, there’s going to be a lot more options to check off besides white, black, hispanic, other. Or caucasian, non-caucasian. Or to take us way back “caucasoid”, “mongoloid”, and “negroid”.

Exactly. Sperm donors are required to provide their ethnicity, and this information is shared with the recipients. That’s one of the search criteria on the form – if you want, you can look for a donor who’s Italian, Norwegian, Filipino, whatever you’re trying to match. He’s not gonna be surprising anybody with an unexpected “brown baby” (lovely bit of racism on his part).

Aside from that, one of the required questions is “Why do you want to donate sperm?” (Sperm banks use that question to weed out jerks and frat boys looking for beer money).

Acceptable answer: “To help people who want to start a family.”

Unacceptable answer: “To get revenge on all those chicks who won’t fuck me.”

I’m pretty sure MRAs are unable to say the word the word “help” without choking.

He must really take the Manosphere for fools, and can you blame him?

I know…they’re so gullible, and have so little real-world experience, they’ll believe just about anything. Their stories are so preposterous, so self-serving, and so blatantly untrue to anyone with even the tiniest BS detector.

It makes them ripe targets for scammers, grifters, and schlocky PUA ebook peddlers promising to make their lives better. All these “gurus” ever do is encourage them to keep blaming all their problems on other people. Hate sells.

“Uh, aren’t sperm banks a way for couples who want babies and can’t have babies themselves to have babies? ”
Not solely. A LOT of women these days prefers having the baby on their own. Kind of unfair for for the man who wants a child..and there’s no women available because they all went to the baby wending machine. Of course he could wife up one of them..and pay for someone else genetics.

A LOT of women these days prefers having the baby on their own. Kind of unfair for for the man who wants a child..and there’s no women available because they all went to the baby wending machine.

Behold! The most perfectly ironic sentence in history. How dare the baby vending machines refuse to produce babies for men who want children? BTW sperm banks just hand you a fully formed baby, no gestation or birth involved on the part of the client.

How dare women treat men so unfairly as to not produce babies on demands for them! The poor menz have no other options – like adoption or surrogacy via, you know, those egg donation clinics that we were talking about up-thread. Oh, no, the only solution is to stop women using sperm banks & make them bear children at the command of men.

Of course he could wife up one of them..and pay for someone else genetics.

Yep, cos every man is hetero, women are interchangable and all want marriage & babies and every husband is cuckolded. /sarcasm

I’m seriously in love with the sentence about baby vending (well, “wending”) machines. The best part is that the dude who wrote it will have no idea why all the women (and men who aren’t idiots) reading it are pissing themselves laughing.

I really hope I’m mistaken but If my bullshit detector functions correctly trolly means single mothers by this. As if raising a child alone because “fathers” refuse to take responsibility is something those mothers actually want. :/

Not solely. A LOT of women these days prefers having the baby on their own. Kind of unfair for for the man who wants a child..*

Oh, do you believe we should make parenthood more accessible to cis men where you live? Okay, that’s a reasonable goal. What strategies would you like to explore? Could we make surrogacy more affordable to the average person by way of some sort of financial aid program? Do you want to look at reforming the adoption system, so that fewer men who might otherwise be completely qualified are turned away because of their marriage status?

..and there’s no women available because they all went to the baby wending machine.

Ah, okay. So your suggestion is limiting the options available to cis women who want to be parents, so that they are forced to choose between childlessness or entering into a relationship with a man they don’t want. Say, have you MRAs ever noticed that you tend to propose similar solutions to almost every problem you identify?

There are 400,000 children in the foster care system in the United States; 70,000 in the UK; 40,000 in Australia; 50,000 in Canada; and so on. Find your country and take your pick, dude.

IMO, the fact that so many kids are without a family is pretty unfair. But maybe if I had the painfully self-centered outlook of the average redpiller, I could see a woman living her own life without worrying about same random dude who might want to use her uterus is also unfair, somehow.

MRAs are so all over the place, I mean seriously. You guys get angry when women sperm-jack you (as if that’s even real) and also when they don’t pick on a poor wittle man and go to a sperm bank. You don’t actually want to marry a woman because they become used up hags, but you don’t want them to be single either because they ride the cock carousel. You decry the vilification of fatherhood while denouncing the payment of child support as a form of slavery and rather than try to reform the system so that men who want to have children without the need for a mother you’d rather just force women to have to have children with a man.

Did I get that right? . . . . my female hamster brain has trouble keeping track of the superior Male Logic(tm)

Not really…unless nobody bothered to talk out their intentions beforehand. Which is pretty stupid, seeing as this is a living human being (or the prospect of bringing one into this world, at any rate) that they are supposed to be talking about.

Also, note the MRA two-dot ellipsis at the end…because correct punctuation is also MISANDRY!

and there’s no women available because they all went to the baby wending machine.

Dude…this presupposes an awful lot. Like, for instance, that all women would rather cut out the middle-man, or in this case, the boingy-boingy, and pay a few hundred dollars (which is hard to budget on the average woman’s income) to a donor clinic instead. And no, it is NOT a baby VENDING machine. You don’t just stick a few coins in the slot and get a baby to pop out. You actually have to plan and be screened too, and if the clinic is at all ethical, they should reserve the right to turn away women who can’t demonstrate that they can adequately care for and support a child, whether alone or with an existing partner (of whatever sex).

Also, LOL, “wending” — because correct spelling is MISANDRY!

Of course he could wife up one of them..and pay for someone else genetics.

“Wife up”? You make it sound like single women are messy spills on the floor, requiring a nice absorbent paper towel to mop them all away.

And apparently, so is understanding the concept of infertile males who nevertheless would like to raise children. Or women whose husbands have a genetic disorder making reproduction inadvisable. Or voluntarily single mothers who don’t want to be “wifed up” by the Paper Towel Man. Or stable lesbian couples.

Kind of unfair for for the man who wants a child..and there’s no women available because they all went to the baby wending machine. Of course he could wife up one of them..and pay for someone else genetics.

So he doesn’t actually give a shit about being a loving parent to a child, he’s just interested in passing on his oh-so-important genes?

Guess what, he’s not fucking fit to be a parent then. Works out rather neatly imo.

Also, dude. Surrogacy is a thing. I should know; I considered being one when I was short on cash and hadn’t transitioned yet. And even Japan, Land of Vending Machines, hasn’t mastered the art of a baby machine yet.